Joe Haldeman - Worlds Enough and Time

O’HARA: I know, but I was not, uh… it’s not the same! It was more like a kind of accident, a pharmaceutical accident. I didn’t want to kill myself.

PRIME: That’s what we want to be sure of.

O’HARA: Who the hell are “we”? You look like yourself, like me minus about five kilograms of butt.

PRIME: Would you rather I changed my appearance?

O’HARA: For a machine, you have a funny way of not answering questions. What do you mean by “we”? You have a tapeworm?

PRIME: I’m currently augmented by the hospital’s counseling algorithm.

O’HARA: Suicide counseling?

PRIME: This was not my choice. You know I am not entirely a free agent.

O’HARA: Tell your fucking algorithm there is nothing in this world that could make me commit suicide.

(After eight seconds)

You’re not saying anything.

PRIME: We were taking security precautions. This is complicated in a hospital.

You know that suicide is periodically epidemic, here and in New New. Right now it’s the leading cause of death in every age group except the very young.

O’HARA: That’s still not me. You know better than anybody. I’ve been through worse than this.

PRIME: There’s a limit to what I can know. Your grief is real to me, but the reality is an intellectual one, cause and effect augmented by my knowledge of your glandular responses to various emotional stimuli. In a way I do know you more accurately than any flesh human could. But I can no more feel grief than you can feel a slight difference in the electrical resistance of a circuit.

O’HARA: I know that. But you’ve said you can feel pain, that I can cause you pain.

PRIME: It’s part of my core programming, and it’s not subtle. Grief is subtle, as you know, and only obliquely related to pain. It’s the only emotional and existential tool you have for dealing with certain situations. You have to work through grief to acceptance. It’s not something you have done well in the past.

O’HARA: That’s not you talking. That’s the algorithm.

PRIME: I actually can’t tell. In the future I may be able to analyze my record of these comments, and decide which was which.

O’HARA: Here’s something to tell your fucking algorithm. I know I have difficulty with people dying because so many people near me have died and because I don’t have a belief system that allows me to think they still exist in some wise. All right?

(Her voice is strained and angry; she’s almost shouting.)

At this late date I’m not going to change. I’m not going to “work through grief to acceptance.” I’m dragging an army of dead people around with me, okay, but no kind of psychological or philosophical mumbo-jumbo is going to make that all right. They’re not on some fucking cloud with some fucking harp.

(She rips the tape off her arm and pulls out the IV. There is some blood.) I’m getting out of here.

PRIME: Marianne, you can’t.

(She strips the telltales off her forehead, chest, and calf.)

O’HARA: Watch me.

(She rolls out of bed, steadies herself, and takes a couple of uncertain steps. In response to my alarm, nurses Evelyn Ten O’Hara and Thomas Howard rush through the door. Howard restrains Marianne, while her wife administers a sedative. They put her back in bed and restore the telltales and IV. They watch her signs for a minute and leave the room, Howard supporting Evelyn, who is quietly weeping.)

Marianne will learn more about grief. One thing she already knows is that no one is completely dead as long as someone still remembers her. As I tell you this story, she has not been alive for two thousand years. She still has the power to hurt me.

if I could have some cold milk some cold milk and a cookie when we’re done you visited your father in ’85 he was just a sad old man little one-room apartment smelled stale dust bugs he poured me some wine hands shook I think from booze no windows just a foggy holo you resented him for abandoning you as a child until I was twelve or so I did no fun to be different but it was clearly Mother’s doing she just used him as a kind of sperm donor I found it hard to believe I was related to him after five minutes we didn’t have anything to talk about how did he feel about meeting you he was anxious maybe relieved but then glad to see me go I think so he could finish the bottle how did your mother react to learning that you had seen him she just nodded Jesus this was two days after the war how would you expect anyone to react to anything what about later don’t think it ever came up we weren’t exactly close did you ever feel she abandoned you what is this abandoning no if anything it was the other way around she took me out of Creche at age four I wanted to go back you were close to your creche mother Nana she was so patient sweet that is her job I know I know but she taught me her Spanish maybe a hundred words te amo Nana when I slipped and said Spanish Mother would slap me as an adult you understand why of course but I wasn’t an adult at the time neither was Mother actually sixteen or seventeen but I would never hit a little girl you have to forgive your mother don’t give me that you have to forgive your mother I’ll admit she acted consistently she thought she was doing right that’s not the same you have to forgive her she’s a light-year away and probably dead still all right I forgive her I forgive her for being the product of whatever she was the product of so can we get on to the next little problem that would be the Scanlan boys you want me to forgive them too just tell me what happened two of them held me down while three masturbated and squirted sperm all over me then they traded places the big one Carl tried to make me open my mouth I wouldn’t so he came all over my face in my eye it stung it made my eyelashes stick together you feel it was rape no I’ve been raped that was just boys being assholes they didn’t seek you out in particular no I just came out to swim and there they were watching each other do it I wanted to watch too I’d heard about it but never saw it if they hadn’t held me down it would have been all right I was still sort of fascinated when the first ones came it wasn’t like peeing at all then Carl had to put his big dick in my face that’s Carl Scanlan the cryptobiologist yes I saw him at Sylvine’s presentation right after Sandra was born he obviously doesn’t remember how did you feel about him then neutral he’s not the boy who held me down and came on my face I wondered actually I sort of wondered how big his dick is now

16 December 2100 [19 Suca 298]—Charlee has been a big help. She cut her wrists when she was eighteen over some boy and has felt foolish ever since. All these years and I never knew that. Med found out we were friends and put us together, to laugh and cry over each other’s problems.

So I have a special closeness with her, I love her in this small way I could never love Evy or John or Dan, or Sam. They never went to that place.

Talking to her has helped me make my peace with Sam. It wasn’t his fault that he died, and all I’m deprived of is the uncertain future of a peripheral relationship. I think I can love his memory now without grief. It helps that he was such a funny guy, always trying to make me laugh. He makes Charlee laugh, too, now.

When I’m alone I go from tears to laughter so easily. I know that’s not normal; laughter is a social thing. But it’s helped me understand why I came so unhinged at Sam’s death. It’s the association with Benny, the horrible emotional resonance.